False, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Mothers have little purpose to fret about local weather change – What's occurring with that?

From the climateREALISM

By Linnea Lueken

A recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled “Wisconsin ad gives weather events made worse by climate change a new name: unnatural disasters” looks at an ad campaign designed to get mothers to vote to take action on climate change by scaring them by claiming that climate change is causing worse floods, heat waves and wildfires. This is false. The trends for none of the types of extreme weather events being warned about are worsening. In fact, American families are less at risk from the weather today than at any other time in history.

The article states:

An ad running in Wisconsin and other swing states is asking residents to consider a new term to describe severe weather made worse by climate change: “unnatural disasters.”

Science Moms, a nonpartisan group of climate scientists that emphasizes the risks of climate change to families, is spending $2.5 million on the ad campaign, one of a handful it has run as it expands across the U.S., including on billboards. It underscores that human-caused climate change is worsening floods, heat waves, wildfires and other weather extremes — threatening children's ability to experience the world as generations before them could.

Right from the start, the central claim of both the ad campaign and the article is false. Floods, heat waves, wildfires and other natural weather events have not become more extreme by any measurable standard.

Let's start with floods, despite media and climate activists claiming otherwise: the data does not show that the frequency or intensity of floods is increasing. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports with little certainty that climate change is having an impact on floods worldwide. It is equally likely that floods are becoming less frequent. In the United States, the picture is not very scary either: Flood damage appears to have declined over time, even as moderate warming continued. Despite infrastructure buildouts over time, the cost of flood damage relative to U.S. gross domestic product has declined significantly since the early 20th century.

Heatwaves have received a lot of media attention over the past year. Climate Realism has covered many of the specific heatwave events in detail, for example here, here and here. The reports almost universally falsely claim that some place in the world experienced unprecedented temperatures, while ignoring historical data that proves the opposite. They also ignore the increasing impact of the urban heat island effect, which can cause significant warming in inner cities, particularly at night, as discussed in detail here.

Most notably, however, the data shows that in most parts of the U.S., the number of days with temperatures of 95°F or higher has declined. (See figure below)

Figure 1: Graphic from the Fifth National Climate Assessment Report, Chapter 2: https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/#fig-2-7

In addition, historical data show that the most intense heat in the United States occurred in the 1930s; recent sustained heat records do not even come close to that.

And finally, on wildfires: The worst wildfires occurred in the United States in the early 20th century. For example, as Climate Realism has detailed here, here and here, the available data does not suggest that conditions for massive wildfires are becoming more likely over time. In fact, on a global scale, they are becoming less frequent and more severe. Evidence for the latter comes from NASA and the European Space Agency. Satellite data from these organizations show that the number of wildfires and the area lost as a result have declined dramatically in recent decades.

Mothers don't have to worry that climate change is making America less safe for their families. It's shameful that the Journal Sentinel has chosen to uncritically parrot the alarmist arguments of mothers who should not be called “science moms” but “moms without good science education.” The data shows that their claims are false and their fears unfounded, and so the Journal Sentinel's decision to take their stance is hoax.

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